


Insert Relevant Kitten Joke Here

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars Silly Sides [11]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Transformation, Family, Gen, Rex is Smol, Star Wars AU - Soft Wars, brothers being brothers, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:00:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29709915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: Bly only came out to have a good time and tease his cat-shaped baby brother.  This ambush of emotions is very rude.  Ponds is living his best life.
Series: Soft Wars Silly Sides [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706599
Comments: 25
Kudos: 167





	Insert Relevant Kitten Joke Here

**Author's Note:**

> Started tonight with a long list of things I wanted to poke at. This is none of them.

“I know I’ve said it before. I _didn’t_ know I was lying then.”

Rex slowly fluffs out to his fluffiest. His tail is a pineshrub whip of rage. Ponds makes a noise nearly inaudible to humans.

“He’s literally going to bite your face off,” Bly mutters. He tucks his ankles up on the loud mountain of blankets Ponds has standing sentry at the foot of his bunk. He doesn’t expect to be listened to. He isn’t disappointed.

“Your teensy tiny _clawsies_ Rex’ika,” Ponds barrels on, heedless. “You are the _cutest baby_ and right now is the happiest moment in my life.”

Rex growls. It is a sound that really, _really_ shouldn’t belong to something quite so small. Bly is impressed. Ponds delight reaches supersonic.

“ _No this is the happiest moment_ ,” he squeals and the angry hissy kitten is snugged right up under Ponds chin.

It’s funny, Bly thinks. Rex’ika is rage in every single little kitten fuzz on his little kitten body, but not for even a moment is Bly actually worried about Ponds. Ponds tucks an enraged feline right up next to some very important arteries. Rex’ika thrashes and yowls and threatens in his kitten way and not once is Ponds even so much as nicked.

Bly smiles. “Okay, Rex’ika,” he murmurs. He reaches over to pat the bundle wriggling against Ponds’ neck. “It’s okay. We won’t tell Wolffe you’re a sap.” Rex, even tiny and animaled and viciously unhappy about both, loves them all very much. Rex slumps. His teeny paws dangle clawed and forlorn in the air. He glares at them both.

“We love you too,” Ponds coos. He rubs his cheek up and down the fuzz on top of Rex’s head and any other feline would have probably savaged him for that. “And I always think you’re incredibly cute but now you’re fuzzily cute and that makes me happy and it’s such a good day.”

The _best_ day, apparently. Ponds cuddles their littlest brother and glows in just all-around incandescent happiness. And oh. Oh _Rex_.

“We’re not making fun of you,” Bly points out. Rex rolls his head to point eyes this way and drop that very Rex _duh_ look in return. The one that says things about the deficiencies in the chemical make up of the tube you were stewed in, and how you’ve managed to be a disappointment even to those already low expectations. As if Rex didn’t just have himself an epiphany about eight seconds ago, and as if both Ponds and Bly didn’t know the very moment he did.

Rex’ika always was so bad at hiding literally any thought that flashed across his mind. Rex learned to do better, but kitten Rex’ika has immediately reverted.

Bly chucks under his chin and Rex kneads the air resentfully.

“We would never mock you.” Rex and Bly both snort. “Only tease a little!” Ponds defends. He pulls their littlest brother up to stare very seriously into his face. Bly topples a little to knock against his side.

Ponds doesn’t even sway. Sometimes even Bly forgets just how solid he is.

Ponds shifts again, and this time when Bly bumps his side it’s because Ponds has tugged him there. His shoulder is warm under Bly’s cheek.

“You are both delightfully squirrelly menaces,” Ponds says. A gentle thumb rubs circles against Rex’s whiskers. Clever fingers scritch gently right at that spot at the top of Bly’s neck, just inside his hairline.

Bly would hope, very much, that his face isn’t as obviously mushy as Rex’s is.

“Awfully prickly at the least convenient times, sure. But you are my disgustingly adorable baby brothers and I love you very much.”

Rex mews and clicks halfhearted protests. Bly’s face burns. Ponds strokes Bly’s head and nose-taps Rex’s. This was not at all how Bly planned for this conversation to go.

“I’m older,” he tries. Ponds pats his cheek. Rex rumbles something part annoyance, part purr. Ponds drops a kiss on his nose.

“Very much,” Ponds emphasizes.

It’s a lot, for Bly, when he’d only come to make sure everyone was alright; let them know Wolffe was being thoroughly lectured by Cody, and Cody and Rex’s Jedi were already working on a fix. And yes maybe make Rex’ika fluff up a bit. Rex is a cat and Bly’s little brother. Bly is only human. Ponds picks the ‘most inconvenient times’ to get overwhelmingly genuine.

Bly doesn’t appreciate this kind of emotional ambush. He grumbles. “All I wanted to do was see if you’d dressed Rex’ika up yet.”

Rex stiffens like coiled spring. _Don’t you dare_ his glare says. _Thanks for your sacrifice_ Bly’s smile replies. He feels no guilt whatsoever dangling Rex’ika like the fuzzy little distraction he is.

“You are right! Rex’ika I have the _cutest_ outfits just for this-”

“ _Just_ for this?” Bly wonders. Rex chirps something similarly disbelieving.

“I’m always prepared.”

Rex gets dumped, carefully very carefully, into Bly’s arms and Ponds goes mining under his bunk. Rex’s purr rumbles up the crook of Bly’s elbow, nearly content except for how he glares betrayal all the same. Bly grins: that’s what you get for being the baby, vod’ika. He scratches at the base of Rex’ika’s ears and the kitten allows it, even deigns to kick up his purr a bit.

“Oh.” Ponds head pops back up. There’s a cobweb dusting comically down one ear. “Bly.”

Bly does not bring a kitten up in front of him like a shield. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.

“You are amazing and clever and also very adorable. But you’re not quite as good at redirection as you think you are.” He grins, and disappears back into the void of boxes and crates and tchotchkes stored in soft-sided cartons with soft-sided partitions that slide right under bunks.

Rex giggles in cat.

Traitor.

Smug looks awful on him, makes him look like a half-chewed dust bunny. His whiskers go forward and he yawns in a way that somehow screams self-satisfied.

“Suddenly,” Bly hisses, “I feel like you might need a flea dip.”

Rex’s indignation is a beautiful thing. Bly makes mental note to move all his shoes up to higher shelves: the flat of those ears scream retribution.

“Oh,” comes a damning call from the Below. “I have _matching_ jingly light-y bowties for all of us!! _Lifeday Card pictures!_ ”

_We could run_ , Rex’s face says so very clearly.

_It would only disappoint Ponds a little_ , Bly’s wince replies.

They sigh and await their doom.


End file.
